NOVEMBER, 1906, TO FEBRUARY, 1907
FURTHER ARRESTS. THE "MUD MARCH."
Whilst their comrades were in Holloway, the W. S. P. U. members were
putting forth redoubled efforts to press forward the work outside. A
manifesto explaining the objects of our movement and calling upon the
women of the country to stand by those who had gone to prison and to
fight with them to secure enfranchisement was posted upon the walls
and circulated broadcast as a leaflet. This appeal met with a far
readier response than any that had yet been made. Amongst people of all
parties, there was a growing feeling that the imprisoned Suffragettes
should receive the treatment due to political offenders. The Liberals,
large numbers of whom knew her personally, found an especial difficulty
in reconciling themselves to the idea that Richard Cobden's daughter
should be thrown into prison and treated by a Liberal government as
though she had been a drunkard or a pickpocket. Mr. Keir Hardie, Lord
Robert Cecil and others, raised the matter in the House of Commons,
and drew comparisons between our lot and that of the Jameson raiders,
Mr. W. T. Stead and others who had been imprisoned for political
reasons. In reply to this, Mr. Gladstone, the Home Secretary, began by
saying that he had no power to take action. On October 28th, however,
Mrs. Pethick Lawrence left Holloway owing to serious illness. On the
following day, Mrs. Montefiore was also released for the same reason,
and a day or two afterwards it became known that Mrs. How Martyn and
Mrs. Baldock had been removed to the prison hospital. Protests against
the treatment of the Suffragettes daily became more and more insistent,
and at last, on October 31st, Mr. Herbert Gladstone changed his mind
and ordered,[18] or as he put it, "intimated his desire" that the
Suffrage prisoners should be transferred to the first class.
On the eighth day of our imprisonment my cell door was flung open
suddenly and the Matron announced that an order had come from the Home
Office to say that I was to be transferred to the first class. I was
then hurriedly bustled out of my cell and a few minutes afterwards as,
in charge of a wardress, I was staggering along the passage carrying my
brush and comb, the sheets that I was hemming, and all my bed linen, I
met my comrades going in the same direction.
We were ushered into a row of rather dark cells adjoining each other
in an old part of the prison, which is chiefly occupied by prisoners
on remand who have not yet been tried. These women, we were horrified
to find, are treated exactly like second class prisoners, except that
their dress is blue instead of green, and that some to whom permission
has been given are allowed to wear their own clothes, and to have
food sent in to them at their own expense. We were now offered the
same privileges, but these we declined. On consulting the prison
rules, however, I found that first class misdemeanants are entitled to
exercise their profession whilst in prison, if their doing so does not
interfere with the ordinary prison regulations. I therefore applied to
the Governor to be allowed to have pen, pencils, ink and paper, and
after a day's waiting my request was granted. For me prison had now
lost the worst of its terrors because I had congenial work to do.
We were now able to write and to receive a letter once a fortnight, and
to have books and one newspaper a day sent in by our friends. The food
served out to us was exactly like that of the second class except that
instead of oatmeal gruel, a pint of tea was substituted for breakfast
and a pint of cocoa for supper. As the second class is that into which
the majority of the Suffragettes have been relegated, it is useful to
give the table of dinners here.
_Monday_, 8 oz. haricot beans, 1 oz. fat bacon, 8 oz. potatoes, 6 oz.
bread.
_Tuesday_, 1 pt. soup, 8 oz. potatoes, 6 oz. bread.
_Wednesday_, 8 oz. suet pudding (exactly like that served in the third
class), 6 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes.
_Thursday_, 6 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes, 3 oz. cooked meat--a kind of
stew.
_Friday_, Soup 1 pt., 6 oz bread, 8 oz. potatoes.
_Saturday_, Suet pudding 8 oz., bread 6 oz., potatoes 8 oz.
_Sunday_, bread 6 oz., potatoes 8 oz., 3 oz. meat "preserved by heat"
_i. e._, some kind of preserved meat slightly warmed.
The soups or meat for each prisoner was served in a cylindrical quart
tin into the top of which, like a lid, was fitted another shallow tin
holding the potatoes. One did not clean these tins oneself as one
did the other utensils, and probably because the kitchen attendants
were overburdened with work, they were always exceedingly dingy and
dirty-looking. Everything was as badly cooked and as uninviting as it
could be. The cocoa, which was quite unlike any cocoa that I have ever
tasted, had little pieces of meat and fat floating about in it. It was
evidently made in the same vessel in which the meat was cooked. To cut
up our meat, in addition to the wooden spoon, which is common to the
second and third classes, we were now provided with "a knife." This
knife was made of tin. It was about four inches in length and Mrs.
Drummond later on aptly described it as being "hemmed" at the edge.
There was no fork.
On November 6th my sentence came to an end, and the newspaper
representatives were all eager to hear from me what the inside of
Holloway was like. I was thus able to make known exactly what the
conditions of imprisonment had been both before and after our transfer
to the first division and to show that even under the new conditions,
the treatment of the Suffragettes was very much more rigorous than
that applied to men political prisoners in this and other countries.
Next day, November 7th, Mr. Keir Hardie introduced a Women's Suffrage
Bill into the House of Commons under "the ten minutes rule." It had
only two chances of passing into law; the first that the Government
should provide time for it and the second that not one single Member
of Parliament should oppose it in any of its stages. The Government
refused to give the time, and the second chance was destroyed by a
Liberal Member, Mr. Julius Bertram.
On November 19th another demonstration was therefore held outside the
House of Commons as a result of which Miss Alice Milne of Manchester
was arrested, and imprisoned for one week. Public sympathy was still
daily turning more and more to the side of the Suffragettes and when
a by-election became necessary at Huddersfield, Mr. Herbert Gladstone
decided to release Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and her colleagues, though
they had served but half their sentences and, on November 24th they
were set free after one month's imprisonment. They were not only
welcomed with enthusiasm by their fellow militant Suffragettes, but a
dinner was given in their honour by the older non-militant Suffragists
at the Savoy Hotel.
Believing that it was to the Huddersfield by-election that they owed
their unexpected freedom, a number of the released prisoners at once
hurried off to the constituency where Mrs. Pankhurst and a band of
other women were strenuously working against the Government and had
already become the most popular people in the election.
Though the train by which the prisoners arrived was more than two hours
late, they were welcomed at the station by cheering crowds, and found
that a great meeting of women, which had been called for the due time
of their arrival, was still patiently waiting to hear them speak.
The three candidates, Liberal, Unionist and Labour were now, because
of its extraordinary popularity, all anxious to be known as supporters
of Women's Suffrage and they went about wearing the white Votes for
Women buttons of the W. S. P. U. Mr. Sherwell, the Liberal, tried to
sidetrack the Suffragettes' appeal to the electors to vote against him
because he was the nominee of the Government, by constantly announcing
that he was in favour of Women's Suffrage, and that the Liberal Party
was the best of all parties for women. The following handbill issued
from his committee rooms:
"_MEN OF HUDDERSFIELD, DON'T BE MISLED BY SOCIALISTS, SUFFRAGETTES, OR
TORIES._
_VOTE FOR SHERWELL._"
Polling took place on November 28th, and when the votes were counted,
it was found that the Liberal poll as recorded at the General Election
had been reduced by 540. The figures were:--
Arthur Sherwell (L.) 5,762
T. R. Williams (Lab.) 5,422
J. Foster Fraser (U.) 4,844
_____
Liberal Majority. 340
At the General Election the figures had been:--
Sir J. T. Woodhouse (Lib.) 6,302
T. R. Williams (Lab.) 5,813
J. Foster Fraser (U.) 4,391
_____
Liberal Majority 489
Meanwhile the Government had been pushing on with its Bill for the
abolition of plural voting, to which the Women's Social and Political
Union had persistently claimed that a clause providing for the
registration of qualified women voters should be added. When the Bill
reached the Report stage on November 26th, Lord Robert Cecil moved
and Mr. Keir Hardie seconded and Mr. Balfour supported an amendment
to postpone the operation of the Bill until after the next General
Election, unless in the meantime the franchise had been given to women
on the same terms as men. The object was, of course, to call attention
to the need of Votes for Women, and this somewhat round-about way had
been adopted because it was ruled out of order to simply suggest that
votes for Women should be enacted as a part of the Plural Voting Bill.
The amendment was opposed by the Government, and defeated by 278 votes
to 50.
Our Manchester Members were now anxious to organise a protest on
their own account and it was agreed that they should have their way.
Accordingly, on December 13th, a valiant little army of some twenty or
thirty North Country women came down to London and proceeded straight
to Parliament Square, carrying a small wooden packing case which they
set down in the gutter opposite the stranger's entrance. The box was
mounted by Mrs. Jennie Baines of Stockport, a fragile little woman,
who had begun her strenuous life as a Birmingham child home-worker,
rising early in the morning in order to help her mother to stitch hooks
and eyes on to cards before going to school, snatching a few moments
for the same task in the dinner hour and on returning home in the
evening, working far into the night. In her girlhood she had been a
Salvation Army "Captain." Later she had married a journeyman bootmaker,
and though, in addition to caring for her home and her children, she
had been forced to toil in the factory, in order to keep the home
together, she had still managed to work as a Police Court Missionary
and Temperance and Social reformer.
Therefore, it was with the knowledge born of much experience, that
Mrs. Baines now pleaded for the enfranchisement of her sex. Within
a few moments a strong force of police came hurrying up and she was
roughly dragged down and hustled away. Her place was instantly taken by
Mrs. Morrissey of Manchester, whilst the other women linked arms and
pressed closely round to form a guard, but after a short hard struggle
the police broke through, tore the speaker from the box, and made five
arrests. One woman was thrown to the ground and lay unconscious, and
Mrs. August MacDougal, an Australian,[19] knelt on the ground beside
her, raised her head and held a cup of water to her lips. Then a heavy
hand was laid upon Mrs. MacDougal's shoulder and a rough voice ordered
her to go, but she remained to attend to the injured woman. For this
offence she was arrested, whilst Mrs. Knight, the woman who had been
hurt, was removed to Westminster Hospital.
Next day the five women who had been taken into custody were at
Westminster Police Court each ordered by Mr. Horace Smith either to pay
a fine of twenty shillings or to go to prison for fourteen days, in the
first class. They all chose the latter alternative and were taken to
the cells. Two days afterwards some of our members attempted to hold
a meeting in the Strangers' Lobby. As a result of this eleven of them
were sent off to join their comrades in gaol for fourteen days.
Still the Government refused to withdraw their hostility to votes for
women, Parliament remained apathetic, and still the majority of the
general public were content to allow things to remain as they were.
Therefore we felt that yet another protest must be made before the
year 1906 should come to an end, and on December 20th, the eve of
Parliament's rising for the Christmas holidays, Mrs. Drummond, who had
now settled in London, organised a third attack upon the House. Whilst
her followers were attempting to speak in the Lobby, she succeeded
in entering the House unobserved and in making her way by the back
passages to within a few yards of the sacred chamber of debate itself.
Here she was captured by the police, but she resisted their efforts to
remove her with so much spirit that she won the sympathy and admiration
of the constables; one of whom was heard to say, "I wish the members of
Parliament would come here and do their own dirty work!"
Next day as the evening-paper boys were eagerly crying the news
that another five women were gone to join those already in prison
and that twenty-one Suffragettes would now be spending Christmas
there, Parliament rose for the holidays. As the Members left the
House, comrades of the imprisoned women handed each one an envelope
inscribed:--"What a woman really wants for a Christmas box," and within
was a small slip of paper bearing the words, "A vote."
For the first batch of Suffragettes to be released from prison in
January, a Christmas dinner was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence at the Holborn Restaurant, and for Mrs. Drummond and those
of the Suffragettes who were set free later, the first of the public
welcome breakfasts, which have since become an institution, was held
at Anderton's Hotel. The released prisoners were able to tell us that
Christmas day in Holloway is, except that one goes twice to Chapel,
exactly like all the other days of the year and that the Christmas
dinner, of which so very much is thought outside, is just the usual one
that would naturally fall at any other season to that particular day
of the week. But as Mrs. Hillier on their release, said, they went to
prison for "a cause that they held dear," and so, as Mrs. Martha Jones
added, they regarded having gone there, "not as a sacrifice, but as an
honour." What they had seen in Holloway had more than ever convinced
them of the pressing need that women should be enfranchised. "The
stories that I have heard in the Prison hospital," said Mrs. Baines,
"have reached to the bottom of my heart. I have come out with the firm
resolve to work on."
So the year 1906, the first year of the Union's work in London came to
an end. In October, the step of opening a permanent central office had
been decided upon and a large general office having a small private
room opening out of it was taken in Clement's Inn, Strand. It seemed a
big undertaking at first, but the offices were indispensable. The small
room was considered chiefly as Christabel's office, but all private
business was transacted there, whilst the large room was used for
general clerical work and as a meeting place. Weekly Monday afternoon
and Thursday evening At Homes, were held there and all those who had
joined the Union in those early days can remember Mrs. Sparborough
making tea and handing round bread and butter and biscuits, and
Christabel, with a sheaf of newspaper cuttings in her hand, standing
up on one of the chairs to furnish the latest news of the militant
campaign and to explain the next move in the plan of action.
On the following February 4th, Mr. Winston Churchill spoke in the
Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and he bargained beforehand with the
Suffragettes that they should not interrupt him during his speech, on
condition that he would answer a question on Women's Suffrage before he
left the platform. At the close of the meeting he accordingly did so
by saying definitely that he would not vote for a Bill to enfranchise
women on the same terms as men. He added that he greatly regretted that
"earnest, good-hearted women should pursue courses which brought them
suffering and humiliation," but "God forbid" that he should "mock" them
by concealing his opinion. My sister Adela then rose to ask if he had
intended to speak for himself alone, or on behalf of the Government,
an exceedingly important point. What followed is best described in the
words of an eye witness who wrote at once to Christabel at Clement's
Inn: "Last night's affair was terrible. It was a wonder someone was
not killed. Your sister was thrown down and kicked by several men.
The attack was really unprovoked; the stewards had made up their
minds to do it before the meeting. Your sister has a black eye, Mrs.
Chatterton's throat was hurt and Miss Gawthorpe would have been
seriously handled but that some men came to her rescue."
Many women who had long felt that there was "something wrong" with the
position of their sex, but had not realised that the possession of the
Parliamentary franchise could do anything to remove the disabilities
both of law and custom from which they suffered, were now being
awakened by the much-talked-of militant tactics to a knowledge of what
the vote could do for them. Moreover, many who for years had been
nominal adherents of the Suffrage movement, now began to feel that if
some other women cared so passionately for the cause that they were
prepared to throw aside all the usual conventions of good manners and
to thrust themselves forward to meet ridicule, scandalous abuse, ill
usage and imprisonment, it was surely time that they too should make
sacrifices. Their hearts smote them that they had not done more for it
in the past. But most of them as yet thought only of bolstering up and
stirring to new activity the old National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies for they still looked upon the militant women as a rather
dreadful body of fanatics who could have no notion either of systematic
organisation or the prudent laying-out of money. Therefore, though
the W. S. P. U. was already growing largely, the N. U. W. S. S. was as
yet benefiting most largely from its activities. But times had changed
and even the most old-fashioned of the Suffragists were now ready to
copy the first non-militant doings of the Suffragettes and, in order
to prove that they really wanted the franchise, they too determined to
march in procession through the London streets. Therefore on February
9th, 1907, three days before the opening of Parliament, a crowd of
the non-militants assembled close to the Achilles statue at Hyde Park
Corner. It was a dismal wet Saturday afternoon, but in spite of the
rain and the muddy streets a procession of women half a mile in length
was formed and marched steadily on to attend meetings in Exeter Hall
in the Strand and in Trafalgar Square. This procession was afterwards
known as the "Mud March."
At the Exeter Hall the principal speakers who had been chosen to
address the gathering of women were Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Israel
Zangwill. Mr. Hardie devoted himself to urging the women to place
the question of their enfranchisement before all other party
considerations. Meanwhile a most extraordinary scene occurred, for,
whilst his remarks were punctuated by volumes of cheers from the great
body of the audience, a number of Liberal ladies on the platform set up
a hissing chorus.
When Mr. Zangwill came to speak, he, too, declared himself to be a
supporter of the militant tactics and the anti-Government policy, and
the same Liberal ladies, although they had themselves asked him to
speak for them, expressed their dissent and disapproval as audibly as
though they had been Suffragettes and he a Cabinet Minister. From Mr.
Zangwill's brilliant speech--his maiden speech as a politician as he
said it was--which has since been published under the title "One and
One are Two," I can but quote an extract to conclude this chapter:
What is it that prevents the Prime Minister bringing in a Bill for
Female Suffrage at once, in this very Parliament that is opening? He
is in favour of it himself, and so is the majority of the House. The
bulk of the representatives of the people are pledged to it. Here,
then, is a measure which both parties deem necessary. A sensible
woman would think that the first thing a Parliament would do would
be to pass those measures about which both parties agree. Simple
female! That is not man's way. That is not politics. What is wanted
in Parliament is measures about which both parties _disagree_, and
which, in consequence, can never be passed at all. I declare I know
nothing outside Swift or W. S. Gilbert to equal the present situation
of Women's Suffrage.... The majority have promised to vote for Women's
Suffrage. But _whom_ have they promised? Women. And women have no
votes. Therefore the M.P.s do not take them seriously. You see the
vicious circle. In order for women to get votes they must have votes
already. And so the men will bemock and befool them from session
to session. Who can wonder if, tired of these gay deceivers, they
begin to take the law into their own hands? And public opinion--I
warn the Government--public opinion is with the women.... They _are_
unwomanly--and therein consists the martyrdom of the pioneers. They
have to lower themselves to the manners of men; they have to be
unwomanly in order to promote the cause of womanhood. They have to
do the dirty work. Let those lady suffragists who sit by their cosey
firesides at least give them admiration and encouragement. "Qui veut
la fin, veut les moyens." And undoubtedly the means are not the most
ladylike. Ladylike means are all very well if you are dealing with
gentlemen; but you are dealing with politicians.... In politics only
force counts, but how is a discredited minority to exercise force?...
There is a little loophole. Every now and then the party in power
has to venture outside its citadel to contest a by-election. The
ladies are waiting. The constituency becomes the arena of battle,
and every Government candidate, whether he is for female suffrage
or not, is opposed tooth and nail. For every Government--Liberal or
Conservative--that refuses to grant Female Suffrage is ipso facto
the enemy. The cause is to be greater than mere party. Damage the
Government--that is the whole secret. Are these tactics sound? In
my opinion, absolutely so. They are not only ladylike, they are
constitutional. They are the only legitimate way in which woman can
bring direct political pressure upon the Government.... Far better
than to put yourself in prison is to keep a man out of Parliament....
What Christianity cannot do, what charity cannot do, what all the
thunder of your Carlyles and your Ruskins cannot do, a simple vote
does. And so to these myriads of tired women who rise in the raw dawn
and troop to their cheerless factories, and who, when the twilight
falls, return not to rest but to the labours of a squalid household,
to these the thought of Women's Suffrage, which comes as a sneer to
the man about town, comes as a hope and a prayer. Who dares leave that
hope unillumined, that prayer unanswered?... For fifty years now woman
has stood crying: "I stand for justice--answer, shall I have it?" And
the answer has been a mocking "no" or a still more mocking "yes." With
this flabby friendliness, this policy of endless evasion. To-day she
cries: "I _fight_ for justice and I answer that I _shall_ have it."
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Speaking at Leicester on January 30th, the Home Secretary, Mr.
Herbert Gladstone, was proceeding to extoll the promptitude and care
with which, he asserted, the Home Office inquired into alleged cases
of miscarriage of justice, when he was interrupted by cries of protest
from Annie Kenney and a band of other Suffragettes. Whilst they were
being speedily ejected, Mr. Gladstone tried to curry favour with the
audience by saying that he particularly regretted what had taken place
because his action in regard to the Suffragettes had been to reduce the
sentences passed upon them and to ameliorate their prison treatment. As
we have seen the change was only made in response to an unmistakable
public demand, and after Mr. Gladstone had begun by saying he had no
power to effect it.
[19] A cultured literary woman, who, with her husband, had recently
published two anthologies of music.